Vivint Solar Increases Solar Installations And Revenue

Vivint Solar announced its second quarterly earnings report on Tuesday, reporting increases in installations and revenue. However, it is still nowhere near approaching its main rival, SolarCity, in terms of quarterly installations.

According to its quarterly earnings report published Tuesday, Vivint Solar installed 9,312 systems over the quarter, for approximately 66 MW, a 78% increase on the same period a year earlier, bringing their cumulative installed capacity up to 340 MW (and cumulative installations up to 51,458). The company also booked 73 MW for the quarter, which itself was up 40% year-over-year.

Total revenue for the quarter sat at $16.1 million, up an impressive 146% from Q2’14’s $6.6 million. Total operating expenses climbed to $88.5 million, up from $40.7 million in Q2’14.

Vivint Solar is the second largest US residential solar installer, but is well behind its main competitor and outright leader, SolarCity. According to GTM Research, together with Sunrun, the three companies financed 56% of all US residential solar installations throughout 2014.

With Vivint Solar seeing such growth on their quarterly installations, you’d think that it was climbing into contention with SolarCity. However, SolarCity released its own quarterly earnings late July, revealing that it had installed 189 MW in the second quarter — over double that Vivint Solar managed.

Vivint Solar is set to be acquired by SunEdison for $2.2 billion, a fact that has sent the company’s stocks tumbling up and down for the past few months.

“SunEdison’s acquisition of Vivint Solar is a logical next step in the transformation of our platform after the successful execution of our First Wind acquisition in January 2015,” said Ahmad Chatila, SunEdison chief executive officer and TerraForm Power chairman.